Nuclear war worse than climate change challenge
March 28 — To the Editor:
When it comes to threats to our environment, the consequences of increased greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change has received most of our attention. However, many of us still clearly remember the Cold War between the superpowers and living under the constant threat of a nuclear war. That real threat still exists today.
Both the US and Russia have over a thousand nuclear-armed missiles on hair-trigger alert threatening population centers of our planet with consequences that are both more rapid and longer-lasting than the challenges posed by climate change. A nuclear war may not be intentional, but could be triggered by unexpected accidents or misinterpretations, occurrences that have happened in the past but were luckily defused before situations got out of hand. While both of these nations have abundant conventional weapons to protect their respective countries, nuclear weapons represent to them objects of respect and fear. In fact, as recently as last year, verbal exchanges between Russia and the US have heated up with both sides threatening to upgrade and increase their nuclear arsenals.
Money for such efforts would be unnecessary and a huge waste of taxpayer money and could be put to better use improving the lives of the residents of their countries, e.g. addressing our global climate change challenges.
I would like to congratulate the Portsmouth City Council for their support of a recent resolution to ask the US government to renounce the “First-Use” of nuclear weapons, increase safety measures surrounding our current nuclear weapons, and cancel all nuclear weapons upgrades which would cost taxpayers $2.7 trillion without increasing our security or providing more protection.
Such a resolution is also in line with the membership of the Portsmouth Mayor in the international organization “Mayors for Peace”.
Peter Somssich, State Representative / District 27
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